In the solitude and prayer of the green Irish hillsides, he heard the call of God to shepherd his people. He escaped and went back to England, where he studied for the priesthood, and was ordained a bishop. Sent back to Ireland he converted the entire nation quickly by a very strategic approach: he converted the chieftains, bards, and poets, the political and cultural leaders - from the top down.

It is a great mystery to be sent as a missionary. For God so loved Ireland that he sent his beloved son Patrick. God loves you and sent you into your family relationships, your workplace, your school, your particular sphere of influence. Each baptised person has a missionary vocation. Each baptised is sent by God to spread the Gospel.

There are more fruitful mission fields, or arenas upon which we will have a very fruitful harvest:

Conscience-We must live the teaching of the Second Vatican Council to end the dictatorship of relativism that sits upon the throne of many consciences like a tyrant, destroying the potency of the Catholic faith, and making many people who sit in the pews, unbeknownst to themselves, worshipers of relativism. The teach of Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Human Freedom is:

"This one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men...

"On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it...

"Government is to assume the safeguard [NOT VIOLATOR] of the religious freedom of all its citizens, in an effective manner, by just laws and by other appropriate means...

"The disciple is bound by a grave obligation toward Christ, his Master, ever more fully to understand the truth received from Him, faithfully to proclaim it, and vigorously to defend it.

To sum up: we owe each conscience He for whom it was made - CHRIST! We are bound in conscience to proclaim Christ as the Truth for which all men are created and bound to follow once they see it, especially in the proclamation of the lives of the disciples. N.B. THIS is the real teaching of the Second Vatican Council. No one can say in the name of conscience to be a relativist catholic, worshiping the idol of self in place of the only King who should sit on the throne of man's inmost sanctuary, Jesus Christ the Lord.

The violation of the conscience which the Obama administration attempts in its HHS healthcare, in which it seeks to force Catholic institutions to go against the natural law in providing abortions, contraceptives, and sterilizations is not fighting the Catholic Church. Let's be clear: Obama fights God. Bring it! We know who is going to win.

Family Life - There needs to be a clear proclamation of marriage as a one-man one woman covenanted union which is meant for the procreation and upbringing of children. Same-sex unions can never match the same psychological health, wholeness, and blessing of marriage between one man and one woman. For more info, read here.

The UK attempting to redefine marriage between same sex partners is ludicrous and the first consultation showed this. 70% said no and 78% said it's not a priority. However, the government has discarded the first consultation for redefining same-sex marriages and made up a new three month long one, or they need to "redefine consultations before they redefine marriage." Clearly this is so they can try to shake the tree until the fruit they want will fall from it. Not going to happen. Time for Catholics to sign the petition to stop this madness and write their MP's. Please do this now if you are reading this. It is so easy. Just a single email with a few lines. Click here for a directory.

There has to be a very clear proclamation from every Catholic Church and the life of every Catholic about the culture of death and the lies of contraception, abortion, sterilization, in vitro fertilization, same-sex unions, cohabitation, and everything that attempts to present itself as a legitimate form of family life that is really the seed of destruction of human civilization.

Digital Arena- You can watch live the Holy Father on a digital device. You can know the teachings of the Church in a few clicks. You now have no excuse to not know the Church's teachings. You are not alone. There is so much help for you and so much encouragement online to preach the Gospel. The Holy Father said in his Message for World Communications Day a few years ago that especially priests, but all need

"to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis. Using new communication technologies, priests can introduce people to the life of the Church and help our contemporaries to discover the face of Christ."

Social Teachings of the Church - The teachings of Christ about economics, politics, and civic life need to be lived and shared by Catholic to the world that is in desperate need of reordering. The collapse of the economic order is because it is now based on materialism and greed, when it needs to be based on charity and solidarity. There is an excellent online resource, the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.Read it!

May Our Lady help us to answer the call from our baptism to spread the Gospel with maximum fruitfulness.

"The Rosary in the Crypt was introduced by one of the Sisters of the convent, who gave us a little history of the relics, one no doubt we had all heard before (for those who had been there before) but I found it a pleasant reminder, and put me in a good frame of mind.

We sang the Veni Creator Spiritus and then Father Marcus Holden, bore witness to the Martyrs as they related to him and his ancestors. I hesitate to call it even a homily, as it was very touching indeed. We then prayed the Rosary, all the time Father Holden weaving into the tapestry of the mysteries the lives of our English and Welsh martyrs.

The Fifth Mystery was sung in procession led by a little processional statue of Our Lady of Fatima to the actual location of the Tyburn Tree (some 150 meters up the road). It was a very touching scene; the strange looks, the whispers, the peeps of horns, at a little group kneeling around a little statue of Our Lady receiving a final blessing from a recognisably Roman Catholic Priest.

We then went to have a social at a local pub, having a private room (very nice I may add) to ourselves, where laughter and fellowship was the rule. It was a great pleasure to see many friends. And I thoroughly recommend it to everyone."

George is posting all the LMS events on Facebook so go and make friends with him today and if you use Facebook use the events pages to tell your friends about the pilgrimages and Masses that they organise.

Many thanks to Father Marcus Holden who came to lead the Rosary and to preach on the English Martyrs. I have been blessed to hear many wonderful homilies, but I must say this is one of the best I have ever heard. I am delighted to be able to share it with a wider audience. The first part of the video is our singing the Veni Creator Spiritus, which is a beautiful hymn to the Holy Spirit, composed in the ninth century by Blessed Rabanus Maurus. Unfortunately we didn't record the first verse. Father Holden's homily begins at 2.28.

The next Rosary is on Tuesday 3 April (Tuesday of Holy Week), 6.30pm, beginning at The Relic Chapel at the Tyburn Convent, 8-9 Hyde Park Place, London W2 2LJ and concluding at the site of The Tyburn Tree. Father Christopher Basden will give a meditation on Holy Week and Christ's Passion and then lead us in the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Afterwards we will go to the upstairs room of The Carpenters Arms pub, which is a particularly appropriate place for us to go because when the Tyburn gallows were taken down in 1783 they were made into stands for beer-butts in the cellars of The Carpenters' Arms. Everyone is welcome to join us for the Rosary. The social afterwards is for those 18-35 with an exception for priests and religious.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Well, it was a week of high peaks and drama. Cardinal O'Brien made a welcome statement on gay marriage but then went into rant mode which does not help to make a good case but then, who am I to comment?

President Obama rolls on with his anti Catholic campaign and the sleeping giant of Catholic America begins to yawn and wake up to the fact that the world is now well and truly set against us...and then, Rick Santorum bounces back once more while, at home, the good, staid and sensible Conservative Party turns into a Stalinist mob out to get Christians in whatever shape or form, but most especially, in the shape of a cross.

So, in a sense, it is good to return to the good battles within the Church, much more homely.
And Stuart at Ecumenical Diablog reminds us that a very special anniversary took place on 6th March, that of the approval of reception of Holy Communion by hand, just a mere thirty six years ago.
What were you doing in 1976?

But the conditions surrounding the approval (or many of them) do not appear to have been met. Good to be reminded of them though.

Second on my list is Chris Gillibrand at Catholic Church Conservation (rumour has it that CG has moved to Wales, in the same Diocese as me - if that is true I do hope that our paths will cross ere long). But the other good news is that Cleveland Diocese in the USA has had a rap over the episcopal knuckles direct from Rome. 13 churches due to be shut down by the Diocese have received a reprieve thanks to intervention from the Vatican.
Middlesborough, please take note.

Third in line is a book review on the Hilaire Belloc blog. Of course, the book is about HB but I wanted to draw attention to both the book and the great man.
His poetry is especially wonderful and portrays a very Catholic sentiment.
The book is called 'Old Thunder' and the author is Joseph Pierce. Something for the birthday list, yes?

The man who would be Knight blog has an excellent piece on what is meant by knighthood. This is something that we Catholics seem to have forgotten about today but, if you believe that all chivalry towards women stems from love and reverence for the womanhood of Our Lady, you will enjoy this post.

Demetri lives......excellent coverage from Umble Pie. Who was behind this ad? They deserve a medal. It is the same sex marriage subject but, it is different.

Matthew D'Ancona wrote a scruffy piece in Sunday's Telegraph in which he spoke up for homosexual marriage and twisted GK Chesterton into the plot quite scurrilously. Catholic and Welsh has leapt to GKC's defence and given Matthew D a bit of a pasting, well deserved.

Finally, the last post goes to those strong men of the North, the community on Papa Stronsay. The Transalpine Redemptorists have a video clip with a priest speaking out, he has his say and it's worth watching.

Saturday, 3 March 2012

This week in blogging sees yet more persecution of the faithful, those midwives who refuse to be complicit in the killing of infants, those in the USA who, in the public sector, face court if they do not proclaim same sex marriage, abortion, birth control and so on.

Bishop Finn famously said, in a pithy sentence: "We are at war!" And at war we are although, as Catholics, we have always been at war with the world.Not in an Islamic sense, that of Fatwas and violent actions, but in the Christian sense of prayer and submission.

Submission is fine except when it affects our core values.The martyrs of Nagasaki did not submit, neither did the Ugandans or the English and Welsh. They knew that the time had come to take a stand and they did so.

Here are the week's top posts:

Number one spot goes to Cristina Odone, journalist and ex Editor of the Catholic Herald. I admit to having been a little ambivalent to Cristina in the past, believing her to be a somewhat liberal Catholic, but, this week sees her stepping up to the Catholic mark and taking flak for it.The comments made after this post are, in the main, spiteful and malicious and, whenever I hear or read of such a backlash my support goes out to the person brave enough to have stood up to be counted.You may read her excellent post HERE.

Are we Catholic or Roman Catholic? And does it matter? Yes, of course we know we are the 'Roman Rite' but we are not "Roman Catholics" we are just plain Catholics.Introibo ad Altare Dei tells why.

Three is for Monsignor Charles Pope who posts frequently and wisely. He announces the very good news that a US Cardinal has started a blog. Yes, really. I guess you could count the number of Cardinals who have a blog on half the fingers of one hand so it is heartening to see this development. You may read the Monsignor's post HERE and visit the Cardinal's blog on this site http://cardinalsblog.adw.org/

The rather attention grabbing blog title Unveiling the Apocalypse carries, as one might expect, some pretty worrying reading. Worrying that is, until you recall those words of St Matthew: "But as for that day and that hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of Heaven, nor the Son, no one but the Father alone".

I normally steer clear of modern attempts to prophesy the final days but this post is interesting, read it HERE. The author incidentally, is one, Emmet O'Regan - Mullach a-bu!

Five brings us to Ches at The Sensible Bond and his good post, again on persecution. Of course, this week we had Archbishop Nichols stating that the Church in England and Wales is NOT persecuted and, to a degree he may be right. But try telling that to the man or woman who has a Mason or Orangeman as their boss. Or to the worker who wishes to leave early to attend Mass; or the receptionist who wants to wear a miraculous medal around her neck.OK, we are not being chopped up in little pieces but our livelihoods, our reputations and our Catholic society are.

Number six goes to our own and also our latest blogger, Jimin Kang who asks if Our Lady fasted. Enigmatic questions are good for encouraging us to kickstart our brains (or, at least, my brain) into thinking more deeply about the faith. Jimin certainly has great perspective in his posts.

Seven, goes to The Anti Modernist (I think the clue may be in the title) who carries a video post (what's the name for that? Vidpost? Vidclip?) regarding Holy Communion on the Tongue. Bishop Schneider is the key person so you know it is going to be straight, factual and correct.Preaching to the converted, I know.

Our Holy Patron

GUILD PRAYER

God our Father, source of life and freedom, through Your Holy Spirit you gave the Carmelite, Titus Brandsma the courage to affirm human dignity even in the midst of suffering and degrading persecution.

Grant us that same spirit so that, in refusing all compromise with error we may always and everywhere give coherent witness to Your abiding presence among us.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

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Members of The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma are Catholic bloggers and users of the new media who seek to share their faith online. We are inspired by the vision of the New Evangelisation called for by successive Popes.

"Thanks to the new communications media, the Lord can walk the streets of our cities and, stopping before the threshold of our homes and our hearts, say once more: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20)" Pope Benedict XVI's Message for the 44th World Communications Day.

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Contributions to this blog are made by men and women who are members of a Guild for Catholic bloggers under the patronage of Blessed Titus Brandsma. Contributors are loyal to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and to the Successor of St Peter. The Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma blog aims to raise the profile of the Catholic Faith as well as to inform, inspire and educate the laity and evangelise the United Kingdom. Contributors will write on a range of subjects including theology, liturgy, canon law and apologetics.